Hizbullah tunnels under border

Israel: Tunnels may be used to attack border community or IDF post.

Concerns are mounting in the defense establishment that Hizbullah may be digging
tunnels from Lebanon to Israel to attack a border community or IDF
outpost.

While the IDF has been worried that Hizbullah will try to kidnap
soldiers – as it has done twice in the past – the latest fears surround the
possibility that terrorists will cross into Israel through tunnels, enter a
border community like Shlomi and barricade themselves inside a home with
civilians.

In addition, there is concern that Hizbullah will use these
tunnels to plant explosives underneath and next to IDF posts. This tactic was
used successfully in 2004 by Hamas, which detonated an explosives tunnel under
an IDF outpost in southern Gaza, killing five soldiers.

Army commanders
deployed along the border worry that a future Hizbullah strike would involve not
only rocket and mortar fire, as the IDF projects, but also a simultaneous attack
aimed at both kidnapping a soldier and infiltrating a border
community.

Last week, Israel declassified, for the first time,
intelligence regarding Hizbullah positions inside villages in southern Lebanon,
pinpointing the locations of bunkers, command posts and arms caches.

In
response, a top Hizbullah official warned on Sunday that the Shi’ite
group had a
list of targets in Israel that it was prepared to attack with its
missiles in
the event of a new conflict.

While Israel does not believe that Hizbullah
is currently interested in war, it is concerned that the group is still
planning
to avenge the 2008 assassination of its military commander Imad
Mughniyeh in
Syria.

Last week, the Counter-Terrorism Bureau issued a general travel
advisory warning Israelis worldwide to maintain a high level of
alertness out of
fear that Hizbullah may try to kidnap Israeli civilians, specifically
businessmen.